The present invention is directed toward the art of electric guitar pickups. More particularly, the invention to an electric guitar pickup system that enables a plurality of popular and well recognized tonalities, particularly Gibson and Fender tonalities and tone blends, to be played by musicians on a single guitar selectively using simple switches and pickup units disposed on the guitar body at well known locations that are familiar to electric guitarists.
The invention is especially well suited for use in electric guitars and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, the invention is capable of broader application and can be used in any musical or other instrument that uses magnetic coupling means disposed adjacent vibrating string members to generate energy or music.
It is well known in the musical arts that electric guitars can be categorized into two basic groups based upon the quality and range of sounds that they produce. A first broad class of electric guitars generate "Gibson" tonalities. A second class generates "Fender" tonalities.
The Gibson tonality, such as exemplified in the Les Paul guitar, is obtained from either or both of two dual coil hum-canceling pickups such as shown in FIG. 8 and referred herein collectively as a "dual coil flat humbucker pickup". In that configuration, the pole pieces are disposed in a relative side-by-side relationship and are associated with electrical coils that are counter-wound in order to cancel 60 Hz, cycle hum caused by stray electrical signals, radios, UV lights, and bad electrical grounding. Qualitatively, dual coil flat humbucker pickups, or Gibson type pickups, typically generate darker and louder tones relative to simple basic single coil pickup units. The darker tone sound can be attributed in part to the increased sensing range of the spaced apart rows of magnetic interaction zones between the pickup pole pieces and the vibrating wires. The louder sound is attributable to the pair of output coils.
The Fender tonality, such as exemplified in the Stratocaster or Telecaster guitars is obtained from selected combinations of single coil-type pickups. The Fender-type pickup arrangement is illustrated at FIG. 9 and is commonly referred to in the art as a "single coil pickup".
A modern innovation of the Fender single coil pickup has been to stack two coils on end to gain the hum canceling benefits of the Gibson pickups described above, while retaining the essence of the Fender tonality. These pickups are shown in FIG. 10 and will be referred to herein as a "dual coil stacked humbucker pickup".
Qualitatively, the stacked humbucker pickup generates a bright and focused tone due to the narrow sensing field of the single row of stacked magnets. In the stacked humbucker pickup, a pair of coils are disposed in contact one on top of the other and share common magnetic pole pieces. Because of the stacked arrangement of the coils, the sensing field is quite narrow and therefore results in a focused tone. Stacked humbucker pickups benefit from the hum-canceling effect of the counter wound coil members.
In the past, many musicians have desired to play guitars that generate both Gibson tonalities and Fender tonalities. To meet these demands, a wide range of musical instruments have been proposed that utilize various combinations of the above-noted pickup types, arranged at various locations on the musical instrument body, to create the desired set of tonalities and tone blends.
Overall, these product offerings have met with limited success. Musicians have rejected guitars that produce entirely new tones, those that produce inferior Gibson or Fender tones, and those that introduce active electronics, new and different knobs or buttons, and multiple hard-to-use switches. One common approach has been to place one or more additional pickups on the guitar body. Due to the limited amount of space available, the additional pickups are often mounted directly in the middle of the guitar body at or near the pick area. This additional pickup tends to interfere with the musician's access to the strings and, further, creates a row of pickups that looks abnormal and unattractive. Multiple knobs, buttons and other electronic hardware have also been added to enable the auxiliary coils to be connected in various combinations. These additional controls have been complicated and difficult to learn and use.
It is therefore desirable to provide a guitar pickup system for use in an electric guitar for selecting from multiple Gibson and Fender tonalities.
It is further desirable to provide a pickup system for generating and selecting from multiple Fender and Gibson tonalities that is simple and intuitive to use for musicians that have a general knowledge of electric guitar basics.
It is further desirable to provide a pickup system that substantially produces Gibson and Fender tonalities without introducing pickups or other hardware in the pick area so that access to the strings remains free and unencumbered.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a new and improved pickup system in an electric guitar which overcomes the above-referenced problems and others.